HUI Game #1 - Pacal II

[Soirana]

Your flood plain site (I'd move it 1W to settle on elephants for the hammer) is good but it's not tops in production unless you whip. A lot of your land appears questionable in production. If you want to be aggressive here, lean on the whip (so a granary wouldn't be a bad idea soon).

i'd probably settle 1SE from southern phants even with loosing tiles it would have 2xphants+some hills which allows it to be hammer city as long as some FP are farmed.

 

[Slvynn]

I love Chariot rushes:

1. Holkans are slow in enemy territory. You can usually expect 2 more defenders from a slow-moving stack in an early rush.
2. Chariots can get flanking.
3. Chariots cost less than axes/spears.
4. Excellent worker stealers.
5. AIs rarely build early spears and never many. Shaka/Pacal are the exception because of their UU.

All in all, we need a bit more info before deciding for a early rush (be it holkan, axe or chariot), HA rush, elepult war or even a peaceful game. Since Cathy likes to rex, her cities are likely to be not so heavily defended so it does seem to favor some kind of early war in any case.

My point was that HA (HBR after pots)> Early Holkans > Late Chars
It will take time to link horses.
Best option (if you already goig for horse based army) is wait for HA. Later Cha rush is poor idea imo, just HBR and you can mass attack, HBR should be teched after pots, in case horse nearby.
Also CR Holkans (+1 First Strike) is better on taking city. Scouting wll is defenite must, but if she have not copper Holkan rush is better, way way better than Later Chars attack. But they still lose to HA imo.

There is another option - mixed army (holks/chars). ITs also good for case if she have horses only/ have not horses and copper

Worker stealing - you always can build chars bit later just for this puprose, and without delay pump holks army fast before it.

Dont worry good HA army is powerfull tool, while her land will be improved by then and army will spread thin due her crazy rex. Consider she building settlers for you.

HBR is also requirement for jumbos, so its not roadside tech for us.

THE MAIN QUESTION: DO WE HAVE HORSES NEARBY?
So before we answer it we should halt arguing i think
2 things are clear enough - more scouting and AH are necessary.

 

[michmbk]

According test of michmbk

Spoiler :

So
I agree with you that in this case is “almost” no difference between strats, but I need to put your attention on more 1 issue:
You have not 2nd worker, and its more turns of city’s lack of growth.

Summary: I think it proved that my strat was optimal, for details check inside. ;P

Response in spoiler - don't think there's any map or game information in my spoiler, but since there's a lot of focus on not posting advance info even in spoiler, don't click this unless you're 40 turns into the game.

Spoiler :

I did build a second worker in the growth start, right before the settler, and still got the settler out by turn 39. EXP with 4 hammers and a ton of excess food meant the worker came out in 3 turns at size 4.

So both starts have 2 workers and a settler. If I remember right, the growth start has one extra warrior. The second city is settled 4 turns later. So I lose 4 turns of the second city's growth, but I'm going to gain a few turns on getting the third city settled, because the next settler will come in faster than your recommended start - in a map like this with a CRE neighbor south, getting the third and fourth cities out is even more critical to try to block as much land as I can.

Again, I think the chopping start gives up an awful lot just to shave four turns off the settler and second city - 80 hammers (120 post-math) that could later be used for units/wonders is a significant tradeoff for only four turns on the first settler, and a delay on the second settler...

 

[Soirana]

2 things are clear enough - more scouting and AH are necessary.

With my limited experience in Civ i would tech pottery before AH, dependently on satellite cities maybe even writing before AH.

 

[TheLazyHase]

With my limited experience in Civ i would tech pottery before AH, dependently on satellite cities maybe even writing before AH.

Care to explain ? I just don't understand the benefit here.

 

[Slvynn]

With my limited experience in Civ i would tech pottery before AH, dependently on satellite cities maybe even writing before AH.

Pots is defenitely is VERY important tech, espessialy for given leader, though AH will:
1 allow to use that awesome cow res in capital BFC
2 show us horse and give us direction for further settling. It will give us alot inteligence about Cathy, and there is a small chance we can find horse close to BFCs of capital and 2nd city.
3. For now is hight food + mines should suffice for max REX. Pots will be soon anyways, but AH is strategic tech, and results after teching it will make dramatic impact on our empire plans.

 

[Slvynn]

Response in spoiler - don't think there's any map or game information in my spoiler, but since there's a lot of focus on not posting advance info even in spoiler, don't click this unless you're 40 turns into the game.

Spoiler :

I did build a second worker in the growth start, right before the settler, and still got the settler out by turn 39. EXP with 4 hammers and a ton of excess food meant the worker came out in 3 turns at size 4.

So both starts have 2 workers and a settler. If I remember right, the growth start has one extra warrior. The second city is settled 4 turns later. So I lose 4 turns of the second city's growth, but I'm going to gain a few turns on getting the third city settled, because the next settler will come in faster than your recommended start - in a map like this with a CRE neighbor south, getting the third and fourth cities out is even more critical to try to block as much land as I can.

Again, I think the chopping start gives up an awful lot just to shave four turns off the settler and second city - 80 hammers (120 post-math) that could later be used for units/wonders is a significant tradeoff for only four turns on the first settler, and a delay on the second settler...

Spoiler :

Capital almost have no difference in final stage pop/growth (you not growing there when building settler and worker), 2nd city have major, very big and important advantage when gone WWS. It grow much faster, because bing settled and worked since 10 turns earlier.You should also consider travel times : 5 settler 3 worker, 2 turns travel for your 2nd worker. Your worker will start working 2nd city floods from turn 50. In WWS strat its turn 40, and this city's growth is veeery important, as well as earlier Phants camp linked to capitol
Also i consider powerfull 2nd city and early room for more 1 pop in capitol > forest hammer preservation. Why you need to pospone things when you can break walls and crush skulls well earlier and effectively?

 

[JTMacc99]

With my limited experience in Civ i would tech pottery before AH, dependently on satellite cities maybe even writing before AH.

The grassland cow is WAY too powerful a tile to leave unimproved for that long.

 

[dr_s]

i'd probably settle 1SE from southern phants even with loosing tiles it would have 2xphants+some hills which allows it to be hammer city as long as some FP are farmed.

I think that 1S of the elephants is better. More (and better) hills.

 

[vicawoo]

Chariot rushes might be ok, but that's a 2 city build, and that means building the settler at size 3 tops. Improving additional food is going to be wasteful as you'll reach your cap way before mass enough chariots. It will also be considerably slower.

Horse archers will work, but remember that horse archers you tend to REX first, develop your cities, then mass horse archers.

Consider where the different options will place you. If you rush early, you have military first and recover economy later. If you go horse archers, you setup your economy a bit earlier but then slow it while you mass units (no or few libraries). Catapults/elephant means delaying aesthetics.

If you want to attack early hug your scout around his borders. If you're not sure, scout back toward your own land and see if it's worth rapid expansion.

Playing forward from the position is a spoiler. Keep the spoilers off the thread. This is not complicated. If you want to prove how amazingly good you are at baby tactics, do it some place else.

Try hiding your spoilers in tags on a GOTM thread if you think that it's just hunky-dory. Oh. Then do that twice.

No the act of playing forward is not a spoiler, giving away information is a spoiler. Fortunately, my baby tactics consisted of including 0 screenshots, 0 save files ... basically the information that I spoiled was the identity of another civilization and whether some tactic was viable. And please stop overruling other people's memes of civilization with your own, especially when they're not absolutely true. As everyone says, in civilization it depends.

Finally, unless you're some odd Dr. Jekyll version of Shafi, it's his thread, and after finding out that the ALC rules was one of the few series that had this no spoilers rule, I respected his wishes. He can handle his own thread.

 

[Soirana]

The grassland cow is WAY too powerful a tile to leave unimproved for that long.

Cow vs mine is two hammers per turn...

Unless you set city to work some of cap's food surplus, you will soon hit happy cap anyway.

Another thing to consider is that is more important imrpoving one tile or starting cottaging 15 turns earlier.

Depends on what you plan to do with 2-3 city i guess. Since these are unlikely share food with cap and probably have some FP, while holkans provide antibarb protection...

Personally i do not see that horse would change. But i would not chariot rush here. Just me and my 2 Lithuanian cents.

 

[shyuhe]

Horse archers will work, but remember that horse archers you tend to REX first, develop your cities, then mass horse archers.

Having more than 2 cities for an HA rush is not very useful unless one of them has gold/gem/silver that you're working. It just won't contribute enough hammers or beakers to make it worthwhile. Development of cities consists of building a granary (if whipping), barracks, and stable.

 

[michmbk]

From your position, you'd probably want to work a rush. Complete BW, and look for metal. If you don't have it, you might want to hurry to block whatever land you can and work in some holkans. You need more land, so your choices are:

If Horse
-Late(and probably weak if she has metal, but pretty good if not) chariots
-The dreaded horse archer charge although this rush is somewhat advanced

Keep in mind that AH should be soon in your research lineup since you do, in fact, still have that cow tile in the BFC.

I was thinking the exact same thing if we find horse - a great way to deal with a CRE leader who doesn't build lots of units is to mass HAs on her. 2-3 cities producing HAs could set up for an HA snowball like you've demonstrated in some of your games. But it is a bit advanced, because you do have to be careful to quickly pillage metals, focus on the right enemy cities first, and not completely crash the economy along the way.

 

[michmbk]

Spoiler :

Capital almost have no difference in final stage pop/growth (you not growing there when building settler and worker), 2nd city have major, very big and important advantage when gone WWS. It grow much faster, because bing settled and worked since 10 turns earlier.You should also consider travel times : 5 settler 3 worker, 2 turns travel for your 2nd worker. Your worker will start working 2nd city floods from turn 50. In WWS strat its turn 40, and this city's growth is veeery important, as well as earlier Phants camp linked to capitol
Also i consider powerfull 2nd city and early room for more 1 pop in capitol > forest hammer preservation. Why you need to pospone things when you can break walls and crush skulls well earlier and effectively?

Spoiler :

It's not 10 turns of difference - the settler came out 4 turns later on turn 39, which means the second city is settled 4 turns later, not 10 turns. The SECOND settler would come out 6 more turns later, so that would be the THIRD CITY. And as a result, I can settle a third and fourth city faster, which is important here. And linking the elephants to the capital doesn't mean anything until construction.

If there's an amazing second city site, I might be in favor of rushing the settler at all costs. But absent that, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree - i think a lot of the high level players tend to be support the growth approach in most circumstances - while I'm still failing miserably at deity, I'm in the growth camp as well.

 

[Slvynn]

Having more than 2 cities for an HA rush is not very useful unless one of them has gold/gem/silver that you're working. It just won't contribute enough hammers or beakers to make it worthwhile. Development of cities consists of building a granary (if whipping), barracks, and stable.

Agree. You need max 3 cities with listed buildings built for good HA rush. You also need to kick in some mines for prod. Food will not build HA.
Anyways i am advising to uild more workers and few settlers, its more important to have early monument whipped in and all bfcs worked earlier.
All you need is settle around Cathy, and block her, Its better to have even front and borders.

As soon as pots done its good to wait till city will have 1 turn left to next pop, and whip granary. Next turn pop will be already half-stocked.
Jumbo camp connecting is very important too. It's +1

Mass cottaging and then working cottages/mines instead of food res. in capital to disallow unwanted overgrowth.



Edit: haha xposted with michmbk, at least we have full agreement here, on HA topic.

As for Phants (@michmbk) they do difference and give +1 happy
i am still disagree with your last spoiler post, and there is mistake in your turn count. (For turn 40 city already exist few turns with WWS, with Growth you have 5 turns till Settler built, +2 to travel = 9-10 turns.) but i think we will halt here this discussion. We have our own approaches, thats legitimate.

 

[Soirana]

A
As soon as pots done its good to wait till city will have 1 turn left to next pop, and whip granary. Next turn pop will be already half-stocked.

another apostle of how to use micro to loose food... I suggest reading some alst parts of ALC by DMOC on granary details.

 

[michmbk]

So people i need your help to make the decision,

1) Holkan Rush
2) Rex Peacefully and take her out with Phants + Cats
3) Research AH and look for horses after which Chariot or HA rush

Which option do we go for? I am inclined towards Holkan rush cos i think we can make it before cathy hooks up any copper but i could be wrong.

Sorry Shafi - we hijacked your thread way too much with all this stuff about optimal starts/etc. I'm going to stop posting along those lines and get back to what you intended with this thread, which was to help you improve.

My thoughts - I like the idea of your second city on the southern ivory - it'll allow for floodplains, fresh water, and a bit more production. I tend to think that options 2 or 3 are most viable - holkans carry a fair amount of risk with a CRE neighbor and the time it'll take to get them up and running.

If you go option 2, I'd suggest quickly trying to settle the two rice cities to the south as well, and it looks like you may have a viable city north somewhere with the wheat. That'd get you to 5 cities. If you can squeeze one more in somewhere (maybe there's something else north?) and head to construction, cats and phants will wipe out Cathy and get you some more land.

AH is an important tech with the cows so I'd prioritize that. If you find horse, city 3 settles near the horse, and then option 3, HAs, become very viable. Make absolutely sure if you go down that path that you scout Cathy's land and find her metal. It must be pillaged or taken as soon as possible to end her ability to produce spears. 3 cities can easily pull off an HA rush - you can go pottery/writing, then HBR/Archery, and cottages plus a library or two will speed your tech and allow you to afford an HA army.

Good luck - this is going to be a fun game, I think - looking forward to see what you discover next.

 

[Slvynn]

another apostle of how to use micro to loose food... I suggest reading some alst parts of ALC by DMOC on granary details.

I did that and its worked. Whipping granary is anyways what i doing often, and whipping at end of growth cycle 1-2 turns working for me. (if it fall on end of cycle good, and no hammers to build it).
Its normal speed and afaik whipping should be good option.
Also, replace you "suggestion" with link/direct info/screens/formulas or ....

 

[shyuhe]

I did that and its worked. Whipping granary is anyways what i doing often, and whipping at end of growth cycle 1-2 turns working for me. (if it fall on end of cycle good, and no hammers to build it).
Its normal speed and afaik whipping should be good option.
Also, replace you "suggestion" with link/direct info/screens/formulas or ....

You get no food in the granary following your plan.

 

[Slvynn]

You get no food in the granary following your plan.

i though it working and sometimes was doing this (i didnt waited for 1 all the time, it was 1-3 turns, i am brave at whipping ) , and bingo i had half of it. May be its 2 turns? Its should not be exact 1 turn then, but 2 turns before growth works for sure.
I just often whip granary before end of cycle. I am sure that you saying truth, but i whipped in end of bar and i am sure i had that hald filled few times and noted that for myself.
May be if its exact 1 turn it will not work and i am didnt noticed that. In my games i almost never micromanaging that deep. Here its just slow advance, and it's not like real PC playing pace. Its Improving game, and good to know (and my Gemini nature seems didnt catched that) that if its 1 turn exactly it would not work.
I will make tests at home.
Can you please link thread he mentioned? thanks